Steve Saffel, the Senior Acquisitions Editor of Titan Books read the recent article reporting E-book sales (see "E-books 9% of Trade") and had this to say.

In view of the ICv2 conference in New York, this announcement is astonishingly timely.  However, there's one factor that needs to be noted.  We haven't suddenly added 9% to the sales of books.  As the sales of digital books are growing, they're causing a related decrease in print sales.  So the two numbers are both moving closer to the center.  What's really going to make the difference is when we begin to add readers.

This isn't to say that the number isn't significant.  At the Digital Book World conference last January, the prediction was that E-book sales could hit the 10% mark by the end of 2010, and it looks as if the number was right on target.  And I'm a vocal supporter of the need to embrace E-publishing.  It's going to happen whether we like it or not, and we shouldn't knock anything that's going to help us reach millions of people who currently aren't buying books.

The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.